Breaking Mirrors
by Art Luvz Articia AAF
Summary: Alice is having strange dreams. But she's got much more important things to worry about, like her father's funeral and her mother's very strange sister Naomi.


Author Note: Hello. This is Feem here, and this is my first author note! For those who haven't met me before, remember, don't listen to the rumours! I've never had hem relations with any kind of lagamorph and I don't have a talking stick either! Now that I've alienated approximately 98.97% of the audience, it's time to get on with the fic, which is written by myself and a young Gram Parsons fangirl named Janet, taking a break from writing songfics about people trying to be perfect and setting fire to a lot of things, who should probably be doing the author notes from now on.  
  
Breaking Mirrors  
Chapter One  
  
_Bare feet, hammering hard on a mess of soaking loose stones and pine needles. Feet are bleeding. Running faster. Rain in the air. It's like a dark tunnel. It's a forest. Branches breaking underfoot, breaking skin. Your eyes burn so hard you wish you didn't have them any more. You want to claw them out. And this feeling is deeper in your bones, this ache. Cold in the air. Your clothes are torn. Have you been bleeding? This is uphill. For miles around, nothing and nearly nobody. Nearly. You don't know where you're going. The atmosphere is hard-edged, painful, sharp air slamming on your face. More rain. It hurts after a while. With everything else that hurts. Burning in your eyes. Your dress is soaking and covered in mud and hanging in tatters. And you're running faster.  
  
_So she wakes up and reaches out for the comfort beside her. He fits together with her perfectly, they keep each other warm, he protects her, as usual. It's morning, pale and bright. Yuri sleeps on, and Alice ignores the fact that dreams before have been so much more than dreams.  
  
This is Monday. The funeral is today. Alice gently shakes Yuri awake and swings her legs over the side of the bed.   
  
This is London. The house where Alice grew up, the guest bedroom where she wasn't allowed to play as a child. Alice washes her face in the en-suite sink, and can forget for the smallest amount of time. Forget what it is that they're going to bury, forget the empty coffin. Forget who isn't in it. Forget why. What happened since. Not for long, though, because it's always been there, it's always been so close. After today maybe, she tells herself, after today it won't be there and you can just forget everything and start again. She knows as she thinks it that it isn't true but what you can make yourself believe is surprising. Things you know can't be true, but you need the idea anyway. God. Luck. Heaven. Perfect happiness.   
  
Alice puts on a long heavy black mourning dress, sits down at the mahogany dressing table, begins to brush her hair. She's trying to fix it into a bun with a large metal clasp, but it's too fine, too flyaway.  
  
Yuri, come _on. _Hurry up, it's nearly half past seven,' Alice says, already annoyed by the worry about today, the petty frustration of hair that just won't go right.  
  
.... S still early....' Yuri replies. He's unsure what the day will entail, he doesn't really want to find out. Do I have to wear this?' He holds up an expensive-looking black suit that had been hanging on the wardrobe door.  
  
Oh don't be so stupid. How many times have we been through this? And do try to brush your hair and look decent for once in your life,' she half sighs, half snaps, and Yuri can see it'd be pointless to say anything else. Now he devotes his energy to working out how you're actually meant to put the damn thing on.  
  
Alice, looking her reflection in the face, tells herself she will not relive it. Another part of her mind already is. It skips past all the fighting and searching and running and everything else unimaginable that had happened since her father's death. It only sunk in when she got home and that's what her mind wants to concentrate on. She thought she had accepted it, she thought she'd already been through the grieving process and out the other side by the time she got home. But she'd tried to tell her mother what happened, and with saying it it got realer, it got more real with every word, and she'd spent the rest of that day sobbing uncontrollably. She would have cried at nights too, but Yuri was with her now, so she didn't; she didn't want to keep him awake, and she would have felt self-conscious. And it was going to have to be real all over again today. But, of course, you can't _not _have a funeral, what would the family say? So they will bury an empty coffin for the sake of ceremony, and put up a headstone and please God let that be the end of it.  
  
She remembers what the last she'd seen of her father was. What had actually been done with the body, what was left of it? Because she'd been back there since and there was no trace, no bloodstain, nothing. . . Where is he now, physically? Spiritually. Where is his spirit? Alice has seen enough to know there is no God in Heaven like the one she grew up believing in, so where are the dead now?  
  
The air is cool, sky covered n clouds backlit by a bright sun. Black-clad relatives are gathered around the church talking in groups. Alice and the awkward, out-of-place Yuri arrive, along with Alice's mother, and are immediately set upon by people they haven't spoken to in years offering their deepest condolences. By far the least sympathetic-seeming of these is Alice's Aunt Naomi, who sweeps through the clutter of people, managing to look like a black crow even compared to a crowd of funeral-goers. She's wearing a clearly old but still pristine black gown and her hair is swept up into a perfectly neat bun, secured by an ornate clasp.  
  
Ruth,' Naomi greets Alice's mother almost coldly, especially for two sisters who have not spoken in several years. Ruth nods in response, trying to maintain an air of sorrow so as to seem vague and unreachable. . . . And Alice. . .' Naomi turns to her. I haven't seen you since you were twelve.' Alice gets the feeling she'd rather have kept it that way. And,' she fixes her gaze on Yuri. I don't believe we've met.'  
  
This is Yuri,' says Alice, keeping all emotion well away from her voice. My fiancee.'  
  
I see,' the stern-looking woman offers a hand to the bewildered Yuri. Alice has to subtly nudge him to remind him he is supposed to shake it. Then, after a cursory nod, Aunt Naomi disappears off towards the church.  
  
Yuri turns to Alice almost as soon as her back is turned.   
Bloody hell,' he breathes. She's scary.'  
  
The funeral goes by in a slow dragging waltz of prayers, elegies. Alice is trying not to cry so hard she barely notices what's going on. She doesn't want to cry in public because after the service that'll mean more concerned old relatives offering her a hankie, and she can't face that today. She wants most to be left alone. She knows, people talk, she knows they'll all have heard somehow, they'll be saying _ she was there, yes, her, Alice up at the front, his daughter, I hear she was there when he died _ and she doesn't want all the questions. She doesn't want to even think it. She wants to be somewhere else and not to have to deal with this. She has enough to deal with. She wants to forget, not to have to care. But you can't stop yourself caring, you have to just get through it. They sing hymns, the same hymns they've sung at every Elliott funeral since time immemorial. The Lord Is My Shepherd and Amazing Grace. Alice can't see the point in them any more.  
  
After the service, everyone spills out down the steps outside the church, making their way to the churchyard at the back. Alice gets the feeling that for many of these people this is more a social occasion, a gossiping opportunity, than a funeral, a mourning. What must be about the only six men left directly related to Morris carry the coffin out and lay it by a perfect rectangle six feet deep, dug neatly in line with all the other Elliott graves.   
  
Prayers, flowers. The coffin goes down. And it's empty. Alice knows. She holds her mother's arm tightly. feels hands close over hers, so hard it hurts.  
  
The next part is what most of the family have been looking forward to. Back at the old house, the reception. People who didn't really know him will all say how wonderful Morris was, then they'll start drinking and bring up ancient grudges and shame stories.  
  
The largest room, the dining room, has had the table dragged into the middle of the floor, white tablecloth, plates of sandwiches, a lot of glasses, bottles of port and sherry and various other expensive forms of alcohol. Alice can hear some people asking pointed questions about the hired help. There hasn't been money to pay a maid for years, even since before her father died. They used to have one when she was younger, she remembers.  
  
It's light outside and there's a large window looking out to the garden. Despite this, the room feels dark and shadowy. Must be the whole crowd of people, wearing a lot of black clothes. Must be the general mood.  
  
Alice is, secretly, quite amazed at how the house looks. Her mother only got back here from Zurich last week, and before that the house hadn't been lived in for months. but it's spotless. There are even a couple of new things, a small dresser in the Mackintosh style and a framed Japanese print on the wall. How much does keeping up appearances mean to this family, Alice wonders.  
  
She's broken out of her train of thought by the arrival of a cousin, whose name she can't quite remember. Ellen or Elaine or Emily, or something like that. She's talking about society gossip, and Alice has never heard of any of the people involved. She's almost glad when she hears someone call her over. She would have been glad, but it was Aunt Naomi who called her. She's standing by the table.  
  
Alice, dear,' she says, and it sounds as if dear is the last thing that Alice is to her. Naomi is holding a glass of what Alice guesses is gin, nearly empty. With one movement she drains the glass and pours another. Alice can tell Yuri is hanging back, unsure whether to go over or not.  
  
. . . Alice. You do look so much like your mother did when she was that age. . . . Well, you look a great deal more tired, very done in for one your age. Have you been illl lately?'  
  
Killing God, saving the world, you know, the usual,' Yuri mutters, protective, near-inaudible, from where he stands just behind and to the side of Alice.  
  
Pardon?' asks Naomi, quiet but sharp.  
  
I have been well, thank you,' Alice cuts in, her best polite voice.  
  
That's good to know, Alice. Your mother and I have been talking,' Naomi sounds almost like she's speaking to a child. We have decided it would be best if I were to stay here with you for a week or so, to help you get used to life without your father around. I would hate for you to be lonely.'  
  
I bet Mother had nothing to do with it, thinks Alice, but she doesn't really know why Naomi would want to stay with them.  
  
And as Naomi sweeps off to talk to someone else, Yuri says How is your mum going to be any less lonely with her there as well rather than just us? Not wanting to be big-headed, but I think we make slightly better company, hmm?'  
  
Alice smiles. We'll learn to live with her, Yuri. I honestly don't think we have much of a choice.'

_You feel yourself alone, peacefully alone. You can sense the river running past in front of where you stand, wide fast and deep. Across the river is your home town, a few streets wrapped in night. A little down the river there's a bridge, high and arcing like a big stone monster. Behind and around you, you can feel it's a wood, ancient trees. You walk forwards a little and you can feel that you're stepping downhill into the water, even though you're wearing leather shoes you can feel the cool pressure of the river around them.  
  
There's an white moon, shivering light across the black water.  
  
You kneel down in the river, splintering water. Your long skirt soaks up water quickly, making it feel heavy, and the water seeps through to your petticoats under your skirt, making the whole lower part of your dress a sodden cloth lump.  
  
You lean your head down close to the water. You can see your reflection and you stare deep into its eyes. It isn't you as you''re used to looking, but the face is familiar even though you've never seen it before. tI feels it should be yours. And you stare deep into the reflected eyes.   
  
Running from your left ear down to the corner of your mouth, there's a line of dark dull purple and red bruises and wounds, gummed up with old blood and swollen with leaking clear yellowish fluid. This covers up most of your cheek and reaches up at one point to the hollow below your eye. This eye is red, puffy, half-closed, and the skin around it is raw. At the corners of your eye, some yellow-white thick substance has collected. But you're perfectly used to your face looking like this, somehow, although it isn't really your face and you've never had injuries like this before in your life.  
  
Gradually, you become aware of a shadow in the reflection. A vague dark shape over your right shoulder. You stare at this in the water and try to make sense of the shape. But you can't, it won't quite come together, into focus.   
  
So you turn around to see what it is. If anything is there.   
  
What you see when you turn around, well, there is something there, but it isn't a shadow._


End file.
